Campaign to push for open code

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Kurt Lingohr... "f there are proprietary systems in the public sector, then our public servants are not in control."

A Melbourne developer has kicked off a campaign to find out what
the public sector - read councils - is doing with open source
software.

Kurt Lingohr has one query that drives his campaign: "Why are
our taxes going into Microsoft's bank account?"

But Lingohr is no enemy of Microsoft. By day, he does contract
consulting and systems development for public and private sector
companies, mainly in ASP.NET and Delphi.NET (Delphi 8).

He has a background in systems design and development in the
internet and enterprise application integration space and is, in
his own words, a self-proclaimed nerd who is interested in
appropriate technology.

He has set up a website called Public Money, Private Code which aims
"to interview IT managers in the public sector with respect to
their plans for Open Source. It's more than 'is it on your radar?'
It's 'so, what are you doing about it'?"

"We, as citizens, entrust information, systems and data to
public IT servants, who in turn are entrusting it to Microsoft et
al. The bottom line is if there are proprietary systems in the
public sector, then our public servants are not in control. Who is
in control?" asks Lingohr, who says he is "no penguin hugger".

He says the idea for the campaign, which he kicked off last
month, came to him about three months ago - "ever since I read an
article about the government of Peru considering a mandate via
legislation to use open source for all public departments. The
spark was, 'wow, what courage and leadership for a
politician'!"

Lingohr and his wife run a publishing company called Lingo Books
which produces bilingual books for children, in over 40 languages.
"The campaign was born out of frustration about the open source
debate. The debate is bogged down in the 'cost' issue - the
ticketed price of the software versus the ongoing support costs of
open source. It's a battle of the spreadsheet," he says.

"The objective is to put less emphasis on the price/cost debate,
and more emphasis on control. The shareholders of the companies
which supply the software are in control. We are at the mercy of
Wall Street and their insatiable appetite for new versions,
increasing revenues and cutting costs."

By Lingohr's reasoning, the systems and data which run Australia
should, by rights, belong to the citizens of Australia.

One can't dismiss him out of hand - he has done work for some of
the country's blue-chip companies and was chief technology officer
for Mercury Red (Emerge VIC, funded by Paul Keating's Creative
Nation initiative) and technical director for Atomic Media, one of
Australia's longest running multimedia agencies).

He cites a case of what he calls appropriate technology, or in
his words, "the right technology for the right problem."

"In a consulting role many years ago our team was approached to
develop some Lotus Notes software such that the customer could put
some pre-printed forms into a printer, custom design a template
on-the- fly and overprint the form. It was to be an ultra short
run, and the challenge was to develop the solution for under
$500.

"We mulled it over, and proposed our solution the next day: a
typewriter. Needless to say we didn't get the gig. This is what I
mean by the appropriate technology. It was proven, reliable,
required zero training, cost effective, but it wasn't sexy."

The "Public Money, Private Code" campaign was kicked off alone -
he calls it more of a personal crusade against inappropriate use of
technology - but there are now about 2000 people have joined the
mailing lists.

"Using proprietary code in a public sector context is short
sighted and wrong," he says, adding that he would be writing to
every local council in Australia to request an interview in order
to find out where open source is on their radar.

Lingorh says he wants to avoid the mainstream dialogue and
target a specific aspect - Open Source in the public sector. "The
systems and data which run our society belong to Australians, not
Microsoft nor other companies ultimately governed by investors," he
says.